Post date: Jan 10, 2011 5:31:59 AM
In 2003, YSR ended a padyatra, which helped him become Chief Minister the next year, in Srikakulam. Today, his son Jagan began his Odarpu yatra, to honour his father's memory, from Srikakulam. An attempt perhaps to continue that journey.
On his father's birth anniversary on Thursday, the first since YSR's death in a helicopter crash last year, thousands of fans greeted YS Jaganmohan Reddy as he set forth from this town, 750 km from Hyderabad and on the Andhra-Orissa border. He is going ahead with his tour, this leg in north coastal Andhra, despite the Congress leadership's disapproval and even party chief Sonia Gandhi's reservations.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah seems to have washed his hands off this. "Whoever asked me, I told them not to attend the tour which has no permission. If anyone wants to participate, it is their personal decision,'' he said.
The state government is organising programmes too to mark YSR's birth anniversary, but Jagan knows all eyes will be on him and on the response his rebellious tour will get.
He has his supporters. "We will welcome Jagan with garlands," said one. Others are unhappy that the state government has convened the Assembly's monsoon session and that this will prevent MLAs from joining Jagan on his father's birth anniversary.
"I don't know why they chose this date to start the Assembly session. Many of YSR's followers requested the government to change the dates but they paid no heed," said Y S Vivekananda Reddy, YSR's brother.
Jagan had begun his yatra - to console the families of those who either killed themselves or died on hearing of YSR's death last year - in Khammam. The next phase in the Telangana region had to be aborted on May 28.
For Jagan, who has had a troubled political journey in the months after his father's death, this is an attempt to establish that he shall don YSR's mantle. And the Rosaiah government will leave no stone unturned in its tribute to YSR, to convey that Jagan alone is not the inheritor of that legacy.